Day: March 2, 2016

I’ve never done anything in moderation… I don’t understand how it works and don’t care to find out. That goes for everything… do it to the extreme or just stay on the porch. My romances are at the front of the line when it comes to all or nothing moments. Most have started and ended with such intensity they seemed destined for the history books. As bad as the break – up periods were I usually got sucked back into them because I didn’t want to be alone… or I thought I could make it work next time. I was wrong 100% of the time…

Recently, I was listening to Sade and felt the need to get sucked onto memory lane over someone who totally screwed me to the wall and left me to rot ( due to a court order, I am no longer mentioning names!!). But I will mention, Paul Hudson, a writer who seems smarter than me when it comes to realizing good lovin’ gone bad is really just lovin’ gone. Let it go and get on with it. I’m going to sum up what I’ve learned from him… because I’ve had a hard time making love work!

So what is it with romance? The sex is never that great… or it isn’t worth putting up with so much unhappiness to have it! Do we miss the person when they’re gone or what we remember about life with them? Are people capable of missing anything or anyone? Or are we only missing our interpretation and memory of that thing or person? It sounds like the same thing, but it’s not. In essence, we aren’t capable of missing or loving anyone for the exact person he or she is. Instead, we are only capable of loving and appreciating people and things for who or what we understand them to be.

People judge — we all do. It’s the way we were built, and it will never, ever change. By judging, we create a set of beliefs that we have about an individual. As the relationship grows, we tweak.

Sometimes, however, our interpretations of that person are way off the mark — which is one reason people fall out of love. They fall out of love with the person they thought they knew because they’ve grown to understand the person who exists — and it’s not the same person.

People interpret, then recollect and slightly alter their memory of that person before again interpreting that memory of that particular individual. People are fricking complicated. Sometimes the way we remember someone is very similar to the person he or she is — or, at the very least, once was.

But we like to romanticize. We like to focus in on the way someone made us feel rather than the way he or she acted and treated us. By doing so, we focus in on those strong, pleasant emotions and allow them to cloud our entire memory of an individual.

Again, sometimes this memory is right on the mark. Sometimes we have every reason to miss someone. Unfortunately, the opposite is just as likely to be true. Sometimes you don’t miss the person but instead, miss the idea of him or her. This person treated you like shit, but you can only remember the good times.

You miss having someone in your life — it’s completely understandable. People don’t like to be alone. Yes, some of us manage much better than others, but it’s just about always due to necessity. No one chooses to be entirely alone unless he or she has some psychological issues. Sure, we all like to be alone from time to time, but only from time to time. Inevitably, we’ll get lonely and want to have someone in our lives to share our lives. It’s completely natural and nothing at all to be ashamed of.

What you should be ashamed of is allowing yourself to miss people who treated you like garbage. They may have been incredibly nice to you on special occasions, but life isn’t full of special occasions. If it were, then there would cease to be a need for the term. If you’re missing someone who would constantly hurt you because he or she simply did not care, then you need to take a step back, take some time to get reacquainted with your reality.

You cannot allow yourself to be all right with being used and mistreated. You simply can’t allow it. You only miss this person when you feel alone. There’s a very easy way to differentiate between true love and everything else we confuse to be love. People miss someone from their past when they are lonely or sad.

The same people look into their past for someone to lean on when they need someone to lean on but have no one to turn to. That’s not love — that’s you grasping at straws. When life is difficult, we never want to be alone because having someone in our lives would make things easier.

As human beings, we’re always interested in making things easier. This isn’t real love. It’s loneliness stretching our imaginations and allowing us to dwell on memories that are more interpretation and less actual reality. If you seem to only miss someone during the hard times, then try not to be fooled into believing you miss him or her.

On the other hand, if you can miss someone even during your happiest moments, then you have a true reason for missing that individual. If you look at your life and all the happiness you feel, and the first thing that comes to mind is, “If only she (or he) were here to experience this with me…” then there can be no argument; you love this person.

You don’t miss the person you were with; you miss the person you were when you were with him or her. When we reach back into our past and remember past lovers, the experiences we had together, the feelings we felt, the memories we created… we aren’t so much thinking about the person we were with but rather a person we were when we were with him or her.

People are self-absorbed. It’s our nature. It shouldn’t be shunned but should be embraced, better understood and a bit better controlled. We don’t remember the person we once loved because it isn’t possible. We never directly interact with people; we interact with our interpretations of them.

And our interpretations are very malleable. We reach back and make changes to the way we understand people and things, as well as how we feel about them. Regardless of all of this, the fact remains that the things and people we believe matter most are the things and people who affected us in the biggest way.

This is something many people overlook: We remember the way people affected us and not the people themselves. Sure, we remember the things they did that made us feel the way we felt, but in reality, we are honing in on the resulting emotions, not the causal actions.

With that being said, what we are missing isn’t so much the individual as it is the reality that having that individual in our lives allowed for. We miss the way we felt and the people we became when we were with him or her. We miss the people we were because they were better versions of the people we are now.

This may be almost entirely the result of nostalgia, but nevertheless, it is the reality we live in — regardless of whether or not we realize it or accept it. People are capable of loving the same individual forever. We are capable of missing him or her and capable of understanding what we managed to lose or give up on. This is rarely the case.

More often than not, we are exhausting ourselves emotionally on individuals who don’t deserve our attention. Learn the difference, and your life will lead you in a much brighter direction.

This is my journey… this is my life.

Rob Cantrell

 

Fear has never motivated me. I’ve been controlled, consumed and held prisoner by it. When I moved to Hollywood, I had everything in the world to fear. I was a stranger in a strange land with no money, friends, safety net or connections. I had no job, car or any earthly possessions. I was starting over at a time in life when most people are kicking back and coasting with the new sports car and trophy wife/husband/lover. As usual, my timing sucked, but this was my last chance to get it together. I knew when I failed (not if), I didn’t have anything to leave behind in Los Angeles when the plane took off for Florida with me on it. Janis Joplin was right, “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose!”. I had nothing to lose in L.A. and no reason to return to Jacksonville, Florida to pick up the nothing I left there….

Even today, I wake up afraid. I’m afraid of death and loss and not finding acceptance from people I’ve never really liked or wanted to be like… I still fear the unknown. The difference between now and days passed is I’m no longer living in vodka or prescription bottles trying to escape fear. I am going to fail. That is a reality. So, today I spend probably too much time online seeing how other people are facing the dreaded “F” word… and as usual, I found some information that makes sense to me. If I’m able to step back and take me out of the equation for a few seconds, I can normally work through most problems in my life. Recently, I read an article by Tim Brownson that explained fear in a way I understand… this is what I’ve figured out….

If you’re like me, there’s been MANY times you’ve been afraid to do something, or afraid to take chances, because you were afraid you’re going to fail. What would your childhood self say if he/she saw all the opportunities you missed out on, and all the dreams you gave up on because you weren’t willing to take a chance? But what would your childhood self say if he/she could get a look at the choices you’ve made?

Sometimes playing it safe is the easiest choice in life, but in return, you’re forced to live your life knowing you settle for not truly knowing what was out there, not knowing what you could have done with your life, and, most importantly, not having the chance to learn or grow.

We’ve all had times where we’ve given up on dreams, not gone after something, or not taken a chance, all because we were afraid of that dreaded question:

“What if I fail?”

We Aren’t Meant To Fear Failure

But what about when we were children; we dreamed of perfection, we were ambitious, and we only dreamed big dreams about how we could change the world.

As children, we didn’t even once think about the possibility of failure… we just think about helping others, making people happy, and making amazing ourselves with what we accomplish.

Whether it was learning to walk, swim, ride a bike; whatever.

We went after what we wanted relentlessly, only focusing on our goals and objectives, and on turning the outcomes in our mind into a reality.

We did whatever we had to do, no matter how many obstacles got in our way, to get to the finish

And you know what’s even more amazing?

We ALWAYS accomplished our goals without exception.

Failure Never Even Entered Our Minds

As children, and a trait you’ll find in successful adults, you’ll notice that they build an image in their mind, and focus on pursuing it relentlessly without even paying attention to the obstacles, and every time we experienced a “failure”, we just ignored it, and kept on moving in the direction of the star we were shooting at.

We dreamed of settling for nothing less than the best for ourselves; we didn’t even think of the words “no” or “can’t”, and we just kept moving forward

Why We Began To Fear Failure

Like anything else, we were taught to look at the world a certain way as we grew up.

And for most of us, rather than hearing:

“You learned to walk, swim, ride a bike, and achieve every single goal you set for yourself because you kept going in the face of adversity; failure is just a natural part of learning as you try something you’ve never done before and move toward your goals.”

Most of us hear:

“You failed; that’s automatically something negative; you suffered a bad outcome… failure is something you want to avoid at all costs.”

Most of us only fear failure because someone else taught it to us to.

We learn and grow through our challenges naturally, without even looking at them as “challenges”, but rather “steps” to realizing the images we build in our wonderful imaginations, and we just keep going after our dreams until they’re reality… we don’t even see a loss until someone teaches us to when we’re older; we only see achievement and gain.

Failure Is Critical To Winning

One thing you’ll notice if you study ANYONE who’s become successful is that far more failures always preceded their successes.

All the world’s most successful people have one thing in common:

They never stopped dreaming or focusing on a goal the same way they did when learning to walk, swim, or ride a bike.

And the funny thing is, as we get older, that desire to dream bigger, to imagine achieving something incredible, and to do something great for people stays present in all of us, but it gets squashed by all the crap that gets put into our heads about failure being a bad thing, rather than a learning experience.

Learning To Look At Failure The Right Way

Whether it was James Dyson doing 5,126 failed prototypes before he got it right, Thomas Edison with 10,000 failed attempts to invent the light bulb, or Walt Disney going bankrupt twice before he achieved his first success, none of these great achievements would have changed our world had it not been for failure.

Here is the truth about failure:

Failure = learning.

They are the same thing.

If we, as children, are born with all the tools to dream, imagine, and achieve every goal we set for ourselves, and we learn and grow through our challenges, and we amaze the world with what we’re capable of.

We’ve got hidden skills and talents; all of us… but the only way they’re going to be brought out is if we us this natural formula for success we’re all born with.

And the best part is I don’t even have to teach you anything; you already used this formula to walk and talk, so you just need to use it as an adult; it’s that simple!

Speaking from personal experiences, the most meaningful learning experiences in my life came out of failures.

If I hadn’t failed, I’d still be the same, and I’d never have learned or grew.

I would never have been presented with challenges, and I’d never have shown myself and the world what I was truly capable of.

I’d have never gotten that sense of achievement and self-confidence that only comes from knowing I did something I thought was impossible, all because I had the guts and faith to believe in myself, just like you should in yourself.

This is my journey… this is my life.

Rob Cantrell